


Something Strange

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: A billion black cats, A gross misunderstanding of international airspace, Dopey costumes, Gen, Group Hugs, Halloweeeeeen!, MTL Trick or Treat Gift Exchange, Party Planning, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Pumpkin massacres
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 02:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16461422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: All Toki wants is a Halloween party. Every year the guys shut him down. Will this year be different?





	Something Strange

**Author's Note:**

> This was my [MTL Trick or Treat](https://mtl-trick-or-treat.tumblr.com/) gift for [Eva72314](http://eva72314.tumblr.com/), a super amazing artist and really sweet person! Hope you like it, Happy Halloween!

Every year he asked, and every year the answer was the same.  
  
_No, Toki, we’re not having a Halloween party._  
  
_No, Toki, celebrating things is dumb and bad and you should feel dumb and bad._  
  
_No, Toki, get the hell out of my room it’s 3 in the morning you maniac._  
  
But not this year! This year was going to be different! This year the guys were going to listen! This year had been the worst year of his life and things were just starting to get better and _he deserved a Halloween party_.  
  
He arrived at the conference room early, with plans to run through his pitch one last time. (He was unsure if he should start crying at the end, to really sell it. He’d decide in the moment.) When he entered, he was pleasantly surprised to find all of his bandmates were already there, standing in a line on the opposite end of the board table, ten minutes ahead of their scheduled meeting time. It was a promising start.  
  
“Hallos,” he said, back straightening. “T’ank yous for meetings wif mes. Please. Haves a seats.”   
  
The guys looked at each other confusedly.  
  
“No,” Nathan said. “Thank _you_ for meeting with _us_. Please, have a seat.”  
  
Toki frowned. “I calleds dis meetings, I gets to tells people whats don’ts have seats to haves a seats so _please_ haves a seats.”  
  
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, but, right after you called this meetin’ we remembered _we_ wanted to call a meetin’, and we definitely thought’a that _way_ before you called this meetin’, so please,” Pickles made a sweeping, stiff-armed gesture toward the chairs, “hava seat.”

“I ams in charges! Please! _Haves a seats!_ ”  
  
“Schure you are pal, pleasche, have a scheat.”

“Please! Haves! A Seats!”  
  
“Toki, please, eeuuuuuughhhhhhhh haves a seats.”  
  
“ **Please haves a seats!!!!** ”  
  
This went on for some time.  
  
“Okay,” Nathan said. All the chairs were still unoccupied. “We’re gonna go first because there’s more of us and we’re louder than you and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”  
  
Toki conceded with a scowl, folding his arms across his stomach to tamp down the tantrum brewing in his guts. Nathan cleared his throat and continued.  
  
“As you know, we’ve had a strict anti-holiday policy for many years which everyone agreed was for the best–”  
  
“ _Toki didn’ts agrees!_ ”  
  
“However. In light of recent... _occurrences_ that have been...done on us this year. You know, with the band breaking up and the kidnapping and the whole thing where we’re immortal deities destined to usher in the apocalypse–you remember, you were there.”  
  
Toki glared.  
  
“In light of all that, we’ve been doing some,” he grimaced as if he were passing a kidney stone, “ _self reflection_.”  
  
“I’ve been doin’ some readin’, and it turns out our actions may have contributed to what’s called a,” Pickles lifted the pointer and middle fingers of each hand and bent them around the words that followed, “‘ _tahxic work envirahnment_.’ And that sucks.”   
  
Skwisgaar nodded. “We spends a lots of times being assholes to each others, ands dat was bads. So, we ams t’inkings, whats if, we tries _hueeeghhhhh_ _not_ being assholes to each other?”  
  
“And not being asschholesch to _ourschelvesh_.” Murderface tented his fingers sagely. “I schay schome pretty awful thingsch to myschelf, thingsch I would _never_ schay to any of you guysch! I would _neve_ r schay any of you were putrid unlovable hobgoblinsch too schtupid to realize you’re going to die alone.”  
  
“You said those exact words _to_ me, _about_ me, **_this mornin’._** ”  
  
“Picklesch. Pleasche. Schome patience. _I’m working on myschelf_.”  
  
“Toki don’t gets de points of this!” Toki bleated.  
  
“ ** _The point is_**.” Nathan’s deep intone recalibrated the mood of the room. “We’re unlearning some bad behaviors. And, _maybe_ , our anti-holiday policy fell under that bad behavior umbrella. And...maybe that needs to change.”  
  
The white hot ball of impatient indignation sitting Toki’s chest cooled. He raised his eyebrows, cautious but curious.  
  
“So. Moving forward, vis a vie holidays, and the celebrations of them, herewith, by us, accordingly, ipso facto…  
  
“ _Jaysus_ this is a long windup _Toki_ we’re doin’ Halloween.” Pickles waggled his arms in the air like an exasperated Muppet. “That’s what this is.”  
  
Toki’s rage, moments ago boundless and absolute, flushed out of him. His arms fell to his sides, mouth agape, as he stared at his band mates in stunned silence.  
  
“I was _getting there_ ,” Nathan hissed through his teeth. “So, yeah, Halloween party. It doesn’t make up for everything, but it makes up for most of it, right?”  
  
More silence.  
  
“Pickles, you talk now.”  
  
“Alrighty.” He withdrew a black moleskin notebook from his back pocket and leafed through it.  “Yer always badgering us to do’a group cahstume, so I came up with a coupla options. _Nyehhhhhh_ –”  
  
Squinting at his chicken scratch, he snatched Nathan’s glasses from their perch on the collar of his shirt and held them close to his face.  
  
“– _eeeehhhh_ ya got yer standards. Old timey mahnsters, animals, horror movie villains, spooky scary stuff. Then ya got yer pop culture group cahstumes. Disney movie villains, superheroes, Tetris, Ghostbusters, Wizard of Ahz, Mario Kart–Murderface is Wario, _obviously_ –”  
  
“Schut up, Picklesch.”  
  
Pickles lowered the glasses, expression stony.  
  
“Fer the record, we all hate this next idea. We’ll _do it_ , if you _really_ wanna, but we’ll be miserable the whole time.” He drew a breath, exhaled. “Minions.”  
  
The room erupted in groans of discontent.  
  
“Then I gaht drunk and lost the plot so the rest’a my list is just a recipe for cinnamon buns. But I think this is a decent jumpin’ off point.”  
  
“Nice job Pickles, great variety. Murderface, go, go, go.”  
  
Murderface squared his shoulders like a slimy car salesman.  
  
“You’re alwaysch whining about wanting to carve pumpkinsch, but I figured you’d want to schtay away from knivesch thisch year, _wink wink_ ,” Murderface said, winking. “Scho, I came up with a _way_ more metal way to make schome GOURDgeous creations.”  
  
He paused for a laugh that never came. He coughed.  
  
“Inschtead of _carving_ pumpkinsch, we load them into a catapult, schend ‘em flying through the air, and fire on them with a sawed off schotgun. Blammo! I came up with thisch brilliant invention all by myschelf and didn’t schee it on the internet at all. I call it………….. _Jack-Off O’ Lanternsch_. Patent pending.”  
  
Pickles dragged his hand down his face. “I am _beggin’_ you to reconsider that name.”  
  
“I will not.”  
  
“Okay. Pretty good, Murderface. I hate that name a lot but I love shooting things out of the sky. Moving on! Skwisgaar! You make words now!”  
  
Skwisgaar stooped to the ground, then righted himself to his full height.  
  
“I gots caaaaaaats!”  
  
In his hands was a startled, stretching black cat, green eyes wide, limbs and torso elongated as though it were melting. Toki tilted back slightly and saw beneath the board table, clambering at Skwisgaar’s feet, a swirling black vortex of kitties. They had been quiet until this reveal, but now were mewling little monsters, battling at Skwisgaar’s bootlaces and vying for his attention.  
  
Pickles elbowed Murderface in the ribs and muttered, “Have they been here this whole time? “  
  
Murderface shrugged.  
  
“Cats, plural?” Nathan narrowed his eyes. “You were supposed to get _one_.”  
  
“Welllllllllllll,” Skwisgaar turned the cat over onto its belly and cradled it, a fuzzy, placated loaf. “Dat was de plans, ja. But dens I gets to de aminals emporium? And dey says black cats don’ts gets adopted? Cause peoples t’inks dey ams bad luck?” A kitten leapt up his pantleg. He scooped it up in his palm and placed it on his shoulder. “But _den_ I thoughts, Toki does has de worst lucks in de worlds, so _eeehhhhhhh_ it probablys balances out. Andssssss I tooks. All of dems.”  
  
“How many cats did you…?”  
  
“Congradguglations, Toki! You ams de proud dad of 30 cats! I will _nots_ help you pick ups dere poops.”  
  
“Huhhhhh, called an audible, I see. Your logic is solid. I can’t foresee this ending horribly. Nice job, Skwisgaar. Okay, now me, I talk now.”  
  
Nathan lifted a remote control from somewhere unseen, and with the push of the button all of the room’s shades, closed to this point, slowly began to rise. Toki shielded his eyes from the sudden onslaught of sunlight. When they adjusted, he saw something so majestic he could barely comprehend what he was looking at. Something so magical it seemed buoyed by the spirit of Halloween itself. And rockets. Approximately 1,000 rockets.  
  
“We bought one of those dinky little islands off the coast...Denmark? Estonia? Who cares it’s all the same anyway and it’s _ours_ now, and it’s right there, see?” Nathan pointed to the cragled, floating island hovering just outside the window. “You know how some towns will stock their lakes with trout so all the regular jack-offs can catch them? That’s what we did, but with people. And candy. That’s your own personal flying Halloween island, and we’re going trick or treating.”  
  
“Cause you says you wants to trick or treats!” Skwisgaar, now holding seven cats, exclaimed. “Now you can goes! In de _skies_!”  
  
“Dood,” Pickles said, rubbing his chin, “Whadda we gonna do with the island when Halloween’s over?”  
  
“We can’t _keep_ it, it’sch illegal to have Halloween when it’sch not Halloween. I schaw a documentary about it once.”  
  
“No, guys, _guys_ , it’s fine. Laws don’t count when it’s the sky. I looked into it. It’s basically like international waters, if the waters were in the sky. We can do _whatever we want_.”  
  
Toki’s meek voice broke through, and everyone froze.  
  
“You...dids all dis, for mes?” He held his hand to his chest. “You...wants me to be happys? Because–”  His eyes swelled with tears, threatening to spill over “–you _cares about mes_?”  
  
Pickles scrunched up his face.  
  
“Yeah yeah, we **_the word you used_** about you very much. But don’t start cryin’ cause once you start this one’s gonna start– _ope_ , he’s already gahne.”  
  
Skwisgaar, sobbing, clutched tighter to the 18 cats in his grip, squirming in desperation to be free.  
  
“We cares about yous _so much_.”  
  
“You dos?!”  
  
“ _Of course we does!!!_ ”  
  
Pickles rolled his eyes. “Welp, this is happenin’. Might as well let it run its course aw _Gahd_ Murderface you too?!”  
  
Murderface rubbed at his red eyes with his knuckles. “ ** _I am entitled to my emoshuns, you hobgoblin_**.”  
  
“Jeez, fine, whutever. At least me’n Nathan can keep a lid on it. Right Nate?”  
  
Nathan didn’t answer.  
  
“...Nate?”  
  
Still no answer.  
  
“Aw, dood, c’mahn.”  
  
“ ** _IT’S BEEN A ROUGH YEAR PICKLES AND WE’RE ALL STILL PRETTY RAW.”_**  
  
“Gaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh **FINE** ya idiots.” Swallowing down a lump in his throat, he held his arms out in wide resignation. “Bring it in.”  
  
Crushed at the center of a trembling, weepy group hug, Toki thought of his worst moments of the last year, the fleeting thoughts of despair where he contemplated if death was the better alternative, if survival was even worth it.  
  
It was.


End file.
